Well-Swept Yard

I followed a link to the New York Daily News and discovered a section of the paper devoted to gangster mobs and their activities, including the rubbing sort. The page took me back to my childhood, to the family gathered around the 300 pound Muntz black-and-white TV, watching Eliot Ness gun down thugs weekly. Magically, the thugs returned by the following Saturday.The frightful fun never ended.  The quite wonderful thing about the section leader today is that Ancestry.com has a header add on the page. Tempting. Yet, what if this placement is intentional beyond click-throughs. If I enter my name and START NOW will one of those grainy smudged faces below pop up as my starter and turn out to be the Great Uncle that nobody would ever talk about? Resist. That's it. Don't START NOW. Better to read "Suspected Colombo mob scion Michael Persico celebrates release from jail with pizza and pasta ." He's relatively young. He could not be the unbespoken Great Uncle.

The weatherman predicted freezing temperatures for the region, a swath of land in the impoverished black-belt. My friend teaches in a consolidated school for the region. He said to me, "We will have a full house tomorrow; the school is warm; and the students will get something to eat."